Category:Holocaust Children, Belgium (subject)

Holocaust Children, Belgium (see Holocaust Children Studies)

Overview

Around 75,000 Jews (0.75% of the entire population) lived in Belgium when the German occupation began. The great majority of them, approximately 90% had recently come as refugees from other countries (Germany, Austria, Poland...). Only 10% had lived in the country for generations, and before 1940 it was largely integrated.

The German invasion of Belgium started on 10 May 1940. Unlike Netherlands, which was seen as a "German" province with a German-like population, Belgium was treated as an occupied country under military control.

The Military Government passed the first series of anti-Jewish laws in October 1940 and occasional pogroms were carried on by Flemish collaborators. As part of the Final Solution from 1942, the persecution of Belgian Jews escalated. From May 1942, Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star. Medelen was established as the main transit camp and deportations began in the Summer 1942. Between August 1942 and July 1944, around 25,000 Jews and 350 Roma were deported from Belgium; more than 24,000 of them were killed.

Opposition among the general population to the treatment of the Jews in Belgium grew. The German police only carried out violent razzias and large-scale arrests. In response to this the Jews who remained went into hiding as quickly as possible or managed to become integrated in the non-Jewish population with false identity papers. In addition, the often East European background of the Jews played a role in this: they had fled antisemitism before in their home countries, and were familiar with both the methods and the terrible consequences of persecution.

As Belgians also were forced to work in factories in Germany as early as in October 1942, an organized and active movement of resistance started earlier than in the Netherlands, as did the help for Jews who were trying to go into hiding or escape. The result was a close cooperation between the Jewish and non-Jewish resistance and better chances (and less betrayal) for those in hiding. By the end of the occupation, more than 40 per cent of all Jews in Belgium were in hiding. Members of the Catholic Church (including priess and nuns) took an active role in rescue operations. Many of the Jews in hiding joined the armed resistance. In April 1943, members of the CDJ attacked the twentieth rail convoy to Auschwitz and succeeded in rescuing some of those being deported, including 11-year-old Simon Gronowski.

Out of the about 75,000 Jews in the country in 1940, around 24,000 were murdered during the Holocaust, 51,000 survived.